Learning to sleep again

What I did to get better sleep

 

In 2007 I started a journey that resulted in four brain operations and ended with my determination to re-wire my brain after damage in 2008. Any brain damage affects sleep. The brain repairs itself naturally, which is why the Neuro ward in Auckland hospital imposes a siesta after lunch. 1300-1500 is sleep time and no visitors. In those days, recovering from each operation, I slept for long periods and had wonderful deep sleep. It was so deep that I often wondered if it was the aftermath of a General Anaesthetic. I have a vivid memory of the day I was ‘allowed out’ for brunch with my family. I was so excited… real food and getting away from the visitors boring obligation to converse with a bedridden dummy. I stayed out until 1400 – it was fun; when I returned everyone else was asleep and the lights dimmed. I felt slightly guilty as I crept back to my bed, undressed and lay on my back. I was exhausted, and as soon as my head touched the pillow, I sank down, down into a peaceful and blissful place where I was floating painlessly. I had to lie on my back in a raised position (brain operation rules) in fact, I couldn’t lie on my side for years – my scar was ear -to-ear (my surgeon called it a ‘Mickey Mouse’ cut – very funny) and it hurt to lie on it.

That falling feeling was one that I tried to summon when I was unable to sleep in later years_.  For a few months I slept every afternoon, but soon realised that I simply couldn’t afford to do it. We were running out of money to live on! My husband had been nursing me and had previously been in business with me; we had made the mistake of having all of our eggs in one basket! I had a powerful incentive to get back to normal and sleeping all afternoon would not fit that schedule. My focus shifted from staying alive to staying solvent!

I knew that if I pushed too hard, my brain might suffer, but if I didn’t push hard enough, it would develop the habit of ‘taking it easy’ and never improve. I had seen people do well at getting back to normal and then plateauing because they were financially stable enough and the brain is naturally wired to be lazy – so any excuse will do! People kept telling me that I shouldn’t expect so much after ‘everything you’ve been through’. This almost made me more determined…I was afraid of accepting excuses for myself.

 So, I started to work full days on an irregular basis. Never two days in a row and often only one day a week. After the one day I would give myself permission to sleep all day, blob around the house, have no brain work to do! It was hard but after a few years, I was staying awake all day every day.  In fact, I was now finding it hard to sleep at all and regularly waking in the early hours and sometimes not able to get to sleep at all! I had gone too far and needed to get my sleep back before my brain suffered from the insidious damage of low sleep levels.

Researching sleep, I found that I could easily improve my sleep ‘hygiene factors’. Having a regular bed time; keeping off devices and keeping them out of the bedroom for half an hour before sleep. Avoiding  eating or drinking late – final food at least 4 hours before bed; no coffee or chocolate or sugar after lunch time. Solving the problem of pain was difficult. Chronic or sporadic pain can seriously impact sleep as can sleep disorders. I had pain.

I had pain from cramps and from my scar. Whenever I accidentally rolled onto my side during the night a searing pain would wake me. I started to take Magnesium supplements and my cramps stopped after about a week. I learned to lie still and not turn over although moving of any sort caused a ‘crackling’ sound in my head as the new prosthetic acrylic skull cap moved under my scalp. It was disconcerting but I eventually became used to it! It took several years (about  5) before I realised that my head was no longer ‘crackling’… my new prosthetic had bonded with my scalp.

 I discovered that my real risks other than that were having any sugar and more than one glass of wine with dinner or after. These act like a stimulant in my brain and I either can’t go to sleep at all or wake at about 1am wired for thinking! Eating too late always keeps me awake as my digestive system works through it’s process. Working on the computer doesn’t seem to be such a problem for me, but we have never had a TV in the bedroom so I can’t comment on that.

The basics were easy, the hard part was stopping my brain from worrying. I would worry about anything and everything in the early hours – then worried about the fact that I wasn’t sleeping too! I had to break the cycle. I did two things. Firstly I knew logically that worrying doesn’t help change anything – but it is emotion and not logic that keeps us up at night! So I started to manage my emotions as if they were a child. I closed any ‘open loops’ before going to bed – wrote lists and made decisions about when and how to tackle difficult problems. I refused to talk or think about anything negative for the last hour before going to bed I talked to myself as soon as a negative anxious thought started to emerge…’no I’m not going there, stop it’. Strange thing – sounds silly but it works. The catch is that you have to stop the thought immediately – before it spirals downwards – then you are lost! I control my brain now – not the other way around! It is helpful to imagine that you are not your brain – I now know that it is a highly sophisticated instrument with a very rich operating system and it should work for and not against me.

The other thing I did was relaxation and meditation in bed. It took me a while to develop this level of relaxed focus so I used Hemi-sync sound and music to cheat. I used these for years in fact I still do when I need to change my mind if it’s agitated. Hemi Sync integrates the two sides of the brain through binaural sound. I had used their brain recovery CDs during and after my operations and have found this technology very effective. Look it up if you’re interested. Physical exercise everyday definitely also helped – I noticed the difference on days that I didn’t walk.

Incidentally, don’t even consider sleeping tablets. Chemicals are no long term solution and short term they don’t work properly either. You lose consciousness, but your brain doesn’t go through the necessary stages of sleep to be effective. If necessary, try natural sleep inhalers or Lavender which will allow you to trip the switch into sleep initially. Also anything with Tryptophan (milk, bananas) will create the right chemical state for sleep. Light exposure is also critical – bright light during the day and no light at night – will re-balance Melatonin levels which is essential for sleep. Try an eye mask and ear plugs if you sleep in a noisy place. I tried all of the above!

Then, a few years after my operations, I came across the concept of ‘two sleeps’. A number of writers and researchers are convinced that we originally slept in two phases with a wakeful few hours in the middle if the night. Before the advent of electricity, these early morning hours were apparently considered to be a very productive quiet time for writing, reading and sex. Today’s rushed lifestyle has squashed those two sleeps into a convenient one of about 8 hours. Once I knew that it was natural to wake at 1 or 2 am I relaxed and stopped worrying about it. I got up, did a bit of reading or made some notes (no computers or bright lights – just dim light and paper). After an hour or two, I felt like sleep again and returned to my bed. In the morning there was the delight of finding how much I had written in between sleeps!

Ten years later, my sleep is as good as I could make it. I don’t always sleep right through the night, often having two sleeps, but more often than not I do seem to sleep well for 8 hours. I can’t say that I have any magic bullet because it takes time to find out how to sleep well. Don’t believe people who say that sleep naturally deteriorates with age. I would say that mine could be as good as it was in my teens. Yes, there are chemical changes in the brain as we age – but it’s hard to prove whether these changes cause bad sleep or are a result of it. Lack of new learning will naturally lead to less need to set memories and 're-wire'.  Learn more - sleep more!

Sleep is a state that has many integrated enablers. Some are quick and easy to adopt – the hygiene factors. Others - for me it was the anxiety – can take years to control. Start now and like me, you might be able to learn how to get a good regular nights’ sleep in a few years if you are lucky!